Taxed!

Margaret is now taxed and in daily use. After more than a year of autos I'm running something with a manual gearbox. I don't mind autos but cog-swapping is a better driving experience and I've had no problems with swapping back from autos. There's just a few niggles to sort out but I should be able toget hold of the parts I'll need. (more of that later on)

With Blue being relegated to the backup car I can now tackle a few issues that I've been putting off. The wheels will be taken off and given a coat of silver Hammerite to smarten them up. There's the fuel filler vent to sort out. The radio aerial needs replacing. There's an Acclaim in Derbyshire that's being broken and the owner is offering parts for free so I'm hoping to go down to liberate the parts I need for both Blue and Margaret.

She passed!

Margaret now has an MoT. I picked her up today £215 lighter but I now have that all-important piece of paper. Just the tax disc and then I'm road legal with this car. The quality of the welding is good. The sill has had an invisible repair done and once it has had the topcoat it will look like it was never welded. All in all I'm quite pleased.

A run out to Berkshire

This week on my week off from work I went down to deepest Berkshire in Blue. I'd recently fitted a new fuel filter and when I filled up before setting off I put some STP fuel treatment in the tank. The journey down went without a single hitch and when I filled up again at the Sainsbury's in Newbury I was pleased to find out that I'd averaged 40.9 mpg. I'm back and I clocked up a total of 600 trouble-free miles. I've got a couple of jobs to do on Blue. I need to top up the engine oil and sort out the windscreen washers.

Margaret is still not ready. Good thing I'm not in a rush.

I've managed to revive Brown. I put her in the garage before going away. I'll probably have to jump start the car so I reversed into the garage to make it possible.

A few issues to sort out.

I've been having a few problems with Blue's fuel system so it is time I addressed these. Since I changed the fuel tank I've had problems when filling up. If I fill up too fast the petrol filler neck overflows. According to the Guru this is due to a blocked vent pipe. Also, Blue sometimes runs like a bag of spanners. I'm sure that this is due to rust & sediment in the fuel lines. When Margaret is on the road I'll be able to deal with these problems. The windscreen washer pump has packed up so I'll have to rob the one from Becky.

I'm going to do some prep work on Margaret before I take her in for the repairs & retest to make life a bit easier for the garage and (hopefully) to save myself a few quid.

It failed...

...which wasn't much of a surprise. Fortunately it was only minor things. A brake pipe and a few small bits of welding so I'm going to bite the bullet and get the testing station to do it all so Margaret is booked on for next Monday (the 16th) for the repairs and retest which is convenient for me as I can't afford to tax the car until my next payday in December.

Getting ready for MoT

Margaret has been booked in for the MoT for Friday so I was in the garage sorting out the last few jobs. First up was to finish welding the sill. I got it done and primed as you can see below.
The nearside front suspension turret had another coat of the primer.

The nearside wiper spindle had another small piece of steel wedged in to stop the wobbling and after moving the car out of the garage I tested the wipers (it was raining) and it seems to be fine. The nearside windscreen washer jet was blocked so I cleared it out and the windscreen washers now work perfectly. After I'd finished I washed the car so it is now ready to be tested on the big day.

MoT fail sheet

When I went to Barry's to pick up the replacement quarterlight for Becky he gave me the fail sheet from when he'd put Maragret through the MoT back in June. She failed on 6 things:

1. "Offside headlamp not working on dipped beam." When I first checked the lights the offside headlight was indeed not working. I removed the plug, sprayed some Plus Gas and put the plug back in and it has been working since.

2. "Nearside windscreen wiper doesn not clear windscreen effectively." I've already dealt with this one and it works exactly as it should.

3. "Offside rear fog lamp not in good working order (not working)" When I'd checked the lights as previously mentioned the fog lights were working. I've rechecked them and they're still working.

4. "Nearside front brake pipe excessively corroded." I had a look today and I wouldn't describe it as "excessively corroded". I wirebrushed it and coated it with some grease. My local tester wouldn't just fail it if it neede cleaning. He did the same with Blue.

5. "Offside rear suspension component mounting prescribed area is excessively corroded." I wonder if the tester was referring to the holes in the offside sill as they're within 12 inches of the suspension mounting. I might take a closer look to see if there's any corrosion that I've missed. It'll probably be surface rust that can be wirebrushed & primed.

6. "Nearside front suspension mounting precribe area is excessively corroded." There's some rust on the turret but after wirebrushing and priming it should now be taken care of.

I wouldn't describe the rusty areas as "exessively corroded". The testing station are in the business of selling modern cars and most of the cars they test are the ones they sell. They're certainly not a classic friendly testing station. My trusty MoT tester would not fail the corrosion and would have mentioned it as an advisory so I'm quite sure that Margaret would pass without oo much trouble. Oh, and I've also changed the oil. She should run a bit better now.